GSCW chat: Freight industry should value truck drivers’ time

BIO: Lockwood is senior manager of solutions design at Suddath Global Logistics. He has been in the logistics and transportation industry for seven years, with a background in engineering, optimization, pricing and sales. Hill is executive publisher at FreightWaves.

KEY QUOTES FROM HILL

“Every industry is facing a shortage of workers. If you don’t start fixing some of the issues that drivers have been facing, you’re always going to be short of drivers.”

KEY QUOTES FROM LOCKWOOD

“There’s often no incentive for distribution centers to really process [drivers] quickly other than potentially detention, after let’s say two hours at variable rates, because there’s no consistency there. Either the industry can help self-police and start putting some standards together to solve those problems, and shine a light of visibility on the really bad actors, or the federal government will get involved just like with the ELD mandate.”

“The best thing you can do is walk out to your yard today and start having conversations with drivers, asking them, ‘What’s your experience been like? How long have you been waiting? Have you been helped? What’s the process look like?’ Because those are the small steps we’re going to have to take as shippers, 3PLs, warehousemen to get this industry pointed back in the right way, where we value drivers’ time.”

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